Slain Bride Was Naive, Friend Says

LONG BEACH, CALIF. — Karen Waltz Roston was a naive woman who ``didn`t think any harm could come to her, just didn`t believe bad things happened to people,`` according to a family friend.

Roston, 26, died on her honeymoon cruise Feb. 13. She was strangled and thrown into waters near San Diego.

Her husband, Scott Roston, 36, whom friends say she had known for 18 months, is being held without bail by federal officials at the request of the Bahamian government pending possible extradition. He has claimed Israeli agents killed her in retaliation for his book ``Nightmare in Israel.``

Karen Roston met her future husband while acting as his masseuse in Florida. Friends say she loved him deeply but also wanted the material things he could give to her.

``She definitely did love him. It was that, and the opportunity to have things she had never had before, moneywise, that attracted her,`` said a coworker at Hunter`s Run, a Boynton Beach, Fla., resort where she worked as a masseuse until December. They had worked together for the last two years.

``She never had anything, really, and he had it to give to her,`` said the coworker, who declined to give her name.

``I don`t feel she knew him that well . . . but I guess she felt like she knew what she was doing,`` she added. ``She was a very straight girl, headwise, who didn`t drink or use drugs. She was a health-conscious ballet dancer who took care of herself.``

In a telephone interview from the Florida home of Karen Roston`s mother, Roberta Waltz, a family friend said Karen ``didn`t intend to get married right away. She wanted to wait until June for a formal wedding. But he persuaded her to go to Las Vegas and get married.`` The friend did not want to be identified.

Coworkers said Karen quit her job at Hunter`s Run in December and flew to California to visit Scott Roston, who had left Florida last June. He was living in Santa Monica.

Alicia Anderson, another employee at the resort, said she remembered that when Karen returned from California after Christmas she was ``all excited. They`d gotten engaged. She was showing everybody the ring.``

Karen moved to California soon after. The couple were married in Las Vegas Feb. 4 and boarded the Bahamas-registered Stardancer in San Pedro Feb. 6 for a honeymoon cruise to Mexico. She was dead a week later.

The family friend said Karen`s mother met Scott Roston a couple of times

``and thought he was okay. When you meet a person, how do you tell? You can live next door to somebody and not know what they do.``

Karen`s mother did not believe Scott Roston`s story that Karen was thrown overboard by Israeli agents, the family friend said.

The family knew of no life insurance policy on Karen, nor was there an inheritance, said the friend, who also said Karen probably did not know of Roston`s book.

Meanwhile, a Palm Beach County sheriff`s spokesman said Scott Roston`s mother reported last March that he had been abducted by Israeli agents from a Florida shopping mall.

The incident was not investigated because Roston`s statements could not be confirmed, Farrell said.